according to Darwin also necessiates being able to adapt to changing circumstances. Those who do not adapt do not survive. That means you must be willing to review and make changes.
We see in many ways how much we have in common with conservatives. We want to be left alone, and I at least want a less intrusive and more efficient government. But I do believe in goverment and that it has a social responsibiiity.
The biggest difference between conservatives and progressives is their stance on defense, as in the military.
Conservatives want the stick.
Progressives want the carrot.
Yet we see that there is strength in conservative conformity. Inspite of ideological differences among them, they realize the value of voting together as a bloc. Their main point of concensus is they don't think weak kneed democrats
are capable of defending the country.
Somehow we as liberals have to convince folks that it is not wise to beat your neighbor to a bloody pulp if he happens to step on your petunias. Yet I would not hesitate to destroy my neighbor if I caught him raping my daughter.
People of all political outlooks try to justify their positions by referring to an idealized past. For some it's the image of the pioneer and his family farm, for others its the era of a strong union movement which was a worker's paradise. Still others think that the Gilded Age captains of industry were those who made America great.
So, to the extent that everyone wants to bring back an imagined golden age we are all "conservatives".
A nice book on the differences between our national myths and reality is "Myths America Lives By". Here's a link to a description from the publisher.
Too much time is spent using the past to justify the future. Some of our present problems are unique in the history of mankind. They require new solutions. We have never before faced a global crisis of population size, resource depletion and climate change. Trying to rework old models (especially idealized ones) isn't going to be adequate. As we are seeing these days, worldwide conflict is already happening due to these three pressures, and the responses have been mostly inadequate and ineffective.
I claim that both liberals and conservatives have failed to get their agendas put through over the past several decades. Here is a short essay of mine explaining what I mean:
So, to the extent that everyone wants to bring back an imagined golden age we are all "conservatives".
I can't think of any other time I'd rather be alive than now. If anything, I'm thinking ahead to an imagined golden age in another couple generations (equally misguided, but there are certain trends I'm hoping will continue).
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
I think we can safely say that intelligent design is enjoying its last gasp (albeit a long, annoying gasp), and even Bill Bennett has said that the Right has already lost the gay marriage battle - it's only a matter of time now. But I won't be happy until we have flying cars, of course. If we don't eliminate ourselves as a species first.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
less conformity in the sense of groupthink and more an overlapping of self-interest? If we take the classical definitions of conservative/liberal (not that they apply 100% to our particular situation), conservatives are those happy with the status quo, while liberals want to see change. The circumstances under which liberals desire change may be very different and completely unrelated - some feel the system is too oppressive towards minority groups, others want looser restrictions on government intrustion, still others want a broader net of social services.
It's like the opening of Anna Karenina: "Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
All of which... may be exactly what you've said already. I'll think of something more profound later.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
conservatives are those happy with the status quo, while liberals want to see change
In my experience, they aren't happy with the status quo, they are just very upset with uncertainty. "Why is that woman wearing black lipstick!?!?", "Why are those two dudes kissing?!?!" "AGH! WORLD NOT MAKING SENSE!"
Conservatives have a more complete/static worldview and tend to get offended/disoriented when things fall outside of that view. Ender's 'moderation' seems to be that he includes a large "wierd stuff" bin in his world view that keeps him from getting offended by it, but it is still its own 'wierd' space that shouldn't be treated the same as 'normal' stuff.
Liberals recognize that their world view is incomplete and always will be. As such 'wierd' is only a problem AFTER it is demonstrated to be harmful.
Being conservative is mainly about preserving traditions or conforming to social mores is off base. That is a rather negative slant on upholding morality or supporting what is right and good.
Ok, so being conservative is for preserving certain "traditions". I guess you could call belief that we all have a right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness an antiquated folly, but to us conservatives it is very important. The tradition of caring individual liberty, personal responsibility, and private property has sustained and increased our country's strength and freedom for over two centuries.
Most conservatives do not fear change. We have changed from populist protectionists to free-trade internationalists when protectionism stopped making sense. And we also supported the passage of Civil Rights legislation when it became obvious that race based discrimination was a stain on our human rights record.
Most conservatives are like me. Yes we are conformist in a sense that we "conform" to the Ideal of America that the American Left seems to have forgotten. We love our country and remember the wisdom of our founders. We want a stronger America that is progressive. No one wants regression. We want for our country to be stronger, wealthier, more powerful, a leader in science and technology, and to continue providing opportunity unmatched by any other country in the World.
There is always a need for improvement, and regardless of the failures of our representatives, we conservatives strive for that.
We accept the concepts of women and minority equality in our society but we accept it on a more basic level. We welcome everyone of any race or gender to our community of strong individuals deciding their own future without reliance on the nanny state. Not every old idea needs to be changed. Personal responsibility and individual liberty are paramount and should always apply.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
I think many "liberals" act conservative. Because we come from a conservative past, and conservativism is holding onto that past, even those that progress to newer ideals are going to bring the past with them, their traditions.
I like tradition, so if that is conservative, I accept that, and I like many conservative principles, I prefer incremental cautious progress whenever possible (which is in fact the sort of conservativism you find in Burke, rather than, say, royalism).
However, I believe "progressivism" is exactly a new kind of philosophy which does not posit an idealized past. I think mankind has been improving, the past is full of things we had to overcome, not only slavery, but the ideals that said slavery was not just allowable, but what good and right, that assumed property right could apply over human rights, and a human could be property.
The present is far from perfect, but I do not, myself, have an image of a golden age. Isn't that what makes me progressive?
Being conservative is mainly about preserving traditions or conforming to social mores is off base. That is a rather negative slant on upholding morality or supporting what is right and good.
Nonsense! Everybody believes that they are upholding what is right and good. What distinguishes us is how we conceive of what is right and good, and conservatives do that via preserving traditions and conforming to social norms.
From the Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Edition entry on Conservatism :
in politics, the desire to maintain, or conserve, the existing order. Conservatives value the wisdom of the past and are generally opposed to widespread reform. Modern political conservatism emerged in the 19th cent. in reaction to the political and social changes associated with the eras of the French Revolution and the Industrial Revolution.
Conservatism, a general state of mind that is averse to rapid change and innovation and strives for balance and order, while avoiding extremes. Originally conservatism arose as a reaction against the Age of Enlightenment (see Enlightenment, Age of). Conservatives advocated belief in faith over reason, tradition over free inquiry, hierarchy over equality, collective values over individualism, and divine or natural law over secular law. At a given time in a given society, conservatism emphasizes the merits of the status quo and endorses the prevailing distribution of power, wealth, and social standing. Political conservative thought, however, has reconciled itself with constitutional democracy and individual rights as well as with prudent and orderly social and economic change.
So, "the desire to maintain, or conserve, the existing order" and "emphasiz[ing] the merits of the status quo and endors[ing] the prevailing distribution of power, wealth, and social standing" translate rather straightforwardly into being "about preserving traditions or conforming to social mores."
Ok, so being conservative is for preserving certain "traditions". I guess you could call belief that we all have a right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness an antiquated folly, but to us conservatives it is very important.
No, actually, I call the "right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" a cornerstone of liberalism, which is opposed by conservatives down to this very day. (See the discussion on gay marriage on this very site, for example.)
Again, the Columbia Encyclopedia, entry onliberalism :
philosophy or movement that has as its aim the development of individual freedom. Because the concepts of liberty or freedom change in different historical periods the specific programs of liberalism also change. The final aim of liberalism, however, remains fixed, as does its characteristic belief not only in essential human goodness but also in human rationality. Liberalism assumes that people, having a rational intellect, have the ability to recognize problems and solve them and thus can achieve systematic improvement in the human condition. Often opposed to liberalism is the doctrine of conservatism, which, simply stated, supports the maintenance of the status quo. Liberalism, which seeks what it considers to be improvement or progress, necessarily desires to change the existing order.
Ender:
The tradition of caring individual liberty, personal responsibility, and private property has sustained and increased our country's strength and freedom for over two centuries.
And that tradition is commonly known as "liberalism."
Ender:
Most conservatives do not fear change. We have changed from populist protectionists to free-trade internationalists when protectionism stopped making sense. And we also supported the passage of Civil Rights legislation when it became obvious that race based discrimination was a stain on our human rights record.
I really don't have time for all the lies here, so I'll just pluck the low-hanging fruit: Conservatives opposed passage of Civil Rights legislation with every fibre of their being. Barry Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and as a result began the process of Republicans taking over the once-solid (racist, conservative) Democratic South in the presidential elections that year. OTOH, when LBJ signed the act he is reported to have said, "There goes the South for a generation."
His timing was a bit off, but that's exactly what happened.
I'm sorry Ender, but you have American history absolutely upside down. The depth of your ignorance is, quite frankly, impossible to fathom.
I thought "The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America" was a good look at American conservatism and how it's very different from, say, European conservatism. The Encarta definition you provide is a lot closer to European conservatism.
But not that different. That's why I took the selection I used. The US is a settler, herrenvolk democracy, which gives it a different flavor, as does its British, rather than Continental roots. As a result, it shares significant traits in common with conservatism in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
There is no ancient landed aristocracy, but rather a much more recent cheap imitation. Given the lack of such an aristocracy, the business class is far more central to conservatism in such societies, which also accounts for a more libertarian, "progressive" rhetoric. (The former Canadian "Progressive Conservative Party" was a great embodiment of this.) However, the rhetoric is not well-matched by reality, particularly the reality of the displaced native peoples--and in America, that of the descendents of imported slaves, since the native people did not work out well as slaves.
But these are relatively minor variations compared to what remains fundamental. The proof of that can be seen in the enthusiasm with which William Buckley and the other leading lights of conservatism embraced virtually every from of authoritarian leader from around the world--Franco, Pinochet, the whole succession of apartheid South African leaders, etc., etc., etc. Buckley & Co. clearly recognized their ideological soulmates, even though the local forms differed from place to place.
Lenin and Stalin hoodwinked more than a few who "wanted to believe". Various African Marxists. Our good friends Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Etc. Sorry, but that goes both ways. All sides have a history of being willing to turn a blind eye to authoritarianism to see some of their other favored policies enacted.
The odd thing about the revolution is that the further left you go politically, the more bourgeois they like their art.
- Tom Stoppart, Travesties
Not that the left can't be easily hoodwinked, but those examples were a bizarre merging of left politics and right authoritarianism. Progressives seem to get squashed on both sides - I'd be first against the wall in any of those regimes.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Chavez and Castro have been persecuting their gay communities? I don't think authoritarianism has much to do with being an exclusively problem of the Right.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
The true nature of what was happening in the Soviet Union was not clearly evident for quite some time--unlike the examples I cited. There was a constant barrage of wild charges from the Western capitalist press that had a profound "boy-who-cried-wolf" effect. Nonetheless, by the late 1930s, with the high-profile show trials, American liberals' view of the Soviet Union was generally quite negative. Membership in the Communist Party of America--whose subservience to Moscow was hidden at the time--plummeted, and never recovered.
"Various African Marxists" is perhaps the most telling phrase in your attempt to balance the scales. I names specific regimes that had long, bloody, and well-known records. You can't even come up with a name. (In fact, democracy has had a very rough go in Africa regardless of what ideology its rulers profess, or even actually practice, so you're inability to pick out a name is quite understandable.
As for Fidel Castro, he was only briefly non-controversial on the left. There are certainly some leftists--mostly in small sectarian organizations--who are apologists for him. But for the most part you won't find very many people who actively endorse him, which is what the right has repeatedly done, and still does to this day. Che Guevera, OTOH, was only a government official for the briefest period of time. So, again, the fact that you mention him, when he's not really germane to this discussion, shows how terribly thin your list of examples is.
To underscore the lack of symmetry here, let's turn things around. How often does the right call for overthrowing democratically elected government they don't like, compared to the left? Recent examples (since 2000) on the right: Haiti, Columbia, Palestinian Authority. Recent examples on the left: ???
There are a couple of ways to come at this. One--via the dreaded (and horribly, though undefinedly biased) Pew Center--is to recognize a 4-fold typology: liberal/populist/conservative/liberatarian. "In Search of Ideologues in America:
It's Harder than You May Think" by Scott Keeter, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, and Gregory A. Smith, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (April 11, 2006) breaks it down like this:
In the political caricature of recent years, America is a nation divided: red vs. blue, conservative vs. liberal. "Liberals" tend to favor an active role for government in regulating the economy, but oppose government attempts to regulate morality or private life in the social sphere. "Conservatives" take just the opposite approach, preferring a smaller role for government in the economy but a bigger role for it in promoting morality. Not surprisingly, liberals and conservatives are political opponents on most issues.
But while there is little question that U.S. politics have become more polarized in recent years, the red-blue political shorthand is far from adequate to describe the full spectrum of Americans' political views. Judging by their opinions on a number of issues, many Americans simply do not fit well within either the conservative or the liberal ideological camps, instead falling into one of the two other important U.S. political traditions - libertarian and populist - or defying attempts to pigeon-hole them.
Americans espousing a "libertarian" ideology oppose government regulation in both the economic and the social spheres. "Populists," by contrast, favor an active role for government in both the economic and the social spheres. Still more Americans are distinctively non-ideological in their political outlook, and so don't fit neatly into any of the four ideological camps.
So, what we see in developing countries with leftist leaders is--no surprise--much more along populist lines than along liberal ones. I say "no surprise" because liberalism has long been correlated with cosmopolitanism, education and the like, all of which are in relatively short supply in developing nations.
Altemeyer's insight is more comlicated to explain. But, basically, he went out and tried to find leftwing authoritarians and couldn't find any. He did, however, find that some of those who came closest to fitting the bill also scored very high on the rightwing authoritarian scale. He dubbed these "wildcard authoritarians," and speculated that their existence could help explain (a) folks who start out on the left, but find a permanent home on the right (Mussolini, the neocons, etc.) and (b) folks on the left who become authoritarian leaders when their revolutions succeed (Stalin, Castro, etc.)
Both these analyses suggest that liberals really are consistently anti-authoritarian, and yet also helps to explain why there is also a small, but significant authoritarian strain on the left.
p.s. The ability to handle this sort of ambiguity and complexity is a function of a different cognitive dimension that has profound impacts on politics as well--the dimension of cognitive development, initially investigated by Jean Piaget, starting in the 1920s. In general, liberals tend to exhibit higher levels of cognitive development, though only a smattering of research has been done that's directly on point.
liberal attitudes about various social issues are not necessarily the required attributes of various strains of the Left. So I am sure some of the more socialist/hard leftists couldn't care less about homosexual rights or the more anti-violence anti-war liberalism.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Conservatism is tribalism and conforming to established authority within the tribe --- which usually means supporting the injustices of elites.
Conservatives conserve nothing, not even traditions but they are very sheep-like in their behaviour so they tend to stick with tradition because it's less likely to get them in trouble for being different. However if a president comes along who is their leader and suddenly says something like "torture is ok" when there's been a tradition of saying torture is bad then conservatives will jettison that tradition in two seconds flat.
As a result I agree conservatives don't fear change; they fear being out of step.
Conservatives have a strong group identity which feeds their bloodthirsty, racist, criminal side. They have no sense of morality as others understand it but they understand that they have to pretend to have morals to fit in. Instead their sense of what is moral is nothing more than whatever is seen to benefit their in-group. eg. If murder benefits the in-group then murder is good. This leads to ridiculously contradictory moral opinions because very often the very same act is considered good or bad according to who commits the act, the in-group or the out-group.
This means a conservative usually cannot answer a generic question of morals such as, "Is it right for one country to invade another?" They must first know if the invading country is an official "good guy".
In fact conservatives would see someone with real moral values as a "traitor" or "weak" if it happens that their own security dominated opinions are opposed to moral behaviour.
Nyerere? Lumumba? Mugabe before it became increasingly obvious how nuts he is? The civil war in Angola?
In other parts of the world, there were definitely a good number of leftist sympathizers for communists in North Vietnam and Nicaragua; and for the PA under Arafat, which was a dictatorship in all but name.
Pinochet is a legitimate example of right-wing support for authoritarianism, but Allende was hardly a sterling individual himself. (Remember, to a right-winger like me, seizing private property and nationalizing companies *is* a form of authoritarianism!)
There were still Stalin supporters in the US later than just the 30s. Henry Wallace?
Fortunately this one is restricted to just a few wackjobs like Ramsey Clark, but there are a few Saddam sympathizers out there even today.
Regardless of his involvement or lack thereof in any particular government, there are quite a few Che idolizers on the left. They don't call themselves communists any more for the most part, but I had my run-ins with quite a few far-left folks in college (the Noam Chomsky types).
Yes, if you want to put it to me straight, I *am* skeptical of democracy -- and this is indeed a standard "conservative" position, despite all the talk about democracy in Iraq. I think it's important to remember that we live in a "republic" and not a "democracy". I consider voting one of the *least* important aspects of a free society, compared to, say, freedom of speech or private property rights or an independent judiciary. In elections, sometimes the bad guys win. In true democracy, 51% of the people can vote to oppress the other 49%. Or, as is more common, 90% of the people can vote to tax and redistribute the wealth of the other 10%.
as I work my way slowly through "The Conservative Mind" (honestly, it's set down at the moment) I was struck by the fact that Burke was non-democratic, but neither royalist.
A transitional philosophy that wants progress from but not progress to, perhaps?
I think it's not clear at all. While I'm with many progressives in pointing fingers at conservatives groups, arguing they harbor, for example, more than their fair share of racists and other bigots... that is still a depraved non-philosophical conservatism.
Even if it were a part of conservative philosophy to be bigoted (say to outside non-conformant groups, since I do think conformity is conservative and has a necessarily ugly side), there are still other principles in that philosophy which ARE values, including moral values.
And also, within the group of self-identified "conservatives" there are certainly moral people, even if some of their positions are amoral, perhaps even by their own standards.
I actually can accept as a progressive that conservatism is a somewhat inconsistent philosophy, that it needs sorting out, e.g. modern conservatism contains some contradictions that cannot stand... a sense of conformism to perceived tradition, but also this claim to "rugged individualism"... still, your claim is too extreme, because even so it's a matter of sorting the conservative philosophy out, choosing which moral stands are real, which have to go, rather than it being true they have NO moral principles, they have conflicting ones and should choose.
Extreme theories are usually the correct ones. at any rate a simple theory (ie an extreme one in this context) is to be prefered. What is it to be conservative? What does it mean? Whereas individuals are complex things the essence of the -ism may well be something simple and that is just the sort of thing people are looking for whe they look for an explanation --- a simple statistic that fully represents an apparently more complex system.
That is what "explaining" something means.
A simplifying insight.
As you probably know Paul has an entire website for his views that conservatism is about XYZ. What I put forward is actually pretty similar to what he has said, but I think I say it more concisely and with wider application. For example as you know I would say that liberals often operate in a "conservative" way on some topics. Specifically meaning that they reject the moral system of treating all perspectives as the same and adopt a "moral" system of saying everything my group does is moral and everything my enemies do is immoral -- on the feminism thing for example. Or on the question of the US soldiers in Iraq.
Conservatives just act in a conservative way a lot more often - perhaps always.
Two methods of making a judgment then. One is the method we all pay lip service to -- facts, moral axioms, laws, blind justice. This is the unspoken common ground of a debate because it's considered neutral with respect to disagreeing views. And then the other way of moral reasoning is "My tribe is right and my enemies are wrong". Debates get derailed because half of the people debating are really thinking tribally and then using their "knowldege" they try to figure out a nice sounding argument as if they had come to their view using reason. Of course the result is a mess. Insincere arguments. Sloganeering. Arguments that make no sense. The simultaneous adoption of conflicting arguments or facts. And why should an argument formed under a tribalist "logic" make sense when viewd through the lense of the rational? Most of the time it doesn't and it's frustrating to the other guy to have to pick over dross, which is often defended as if it was gold.
It would be a lot easier if most folks just admited they didn't reach their views because of logic to begin with.
David's characterization of conservatives is somewhat jarring, but it's pretty much a mirror image of how conservatives routinely describe liberals--not so much in the specifics of its content, but in its overall negativity, and lack of coherent structure.
Unlike conservative critiques of liberalism, however, there are some significant chunks of truth in there, but they have to be carefully qualified. There are clear differences between conservative ideology as expressed by various different conservative leaders and how it is understood by ordinary conservatives, for example, and there even more differences between ideology and practice.
To take just one example, tribalism in some sense is a part of conservatism, and there's decades of historical data to support this. Conservatives are much more likely to think in terms of "us" and "them," for example.
But "tribalism" is a very broad term, and one can even argue that the radical neo-con turn of conservatism in recent years is part of a constriction in the sense of tribalism involved--from a more inclusive society-wide view to a more clannish on here at home, which is mirrored on the international level by a retreat from multi-lateralism. There are even cognitive models that correlate with this shift.
The task is relatively simplified if we first distringuish between conservative narrative--the expressed ideology and how it is used to interpret unfolding events in political discourse--and the attitudes of self-described conservatives generally. At the attitudinal level, there is surprisingly little difference between liberals and conservatives--somewhere between 10% and 25% on most questions asked over the decades on the General Social Survey, for example. But conservative narratives are considerably more polarizing and extreme--not to mention reality-challenged.
The real hidden divide in American politics is between mainstream, mainstreet conservative opinion and polarizing conservative narratives that come from the organized conservative movement, which might more accurately be called "reactionary," rather than "conservative." Attacks like David's actually help the movement conservatives maintain their grip. David reinforces the notion that conservatives and reactionaries are one and the same, and that notion is the key to rightwing power in America today.
Extreme theories are usually the correct ones. at any rate a simple theory (ie an extreme one in this context) is to be prefered....
David's approach is to take all the complexities and subtleties, blend them together so that most of their distinctive flavors are lost, and amp up the volume on the most intense, sensational ones. Hence the Jalepeno Smoothie metaphor for his meta-theory of political theories.
So, ask yourself, which is really more to your liking? A diverse meal of soup, salad, entree, drinks and desert? Or a jalepeno smoothie?
the lip service and the fact that there really is an alternate view which is still quite alive though largely in the closet and not admitted to, "my tribe is right and my enemy's is wrong"
Comments :
The theory of survival of the fittest
according to Darwin also necessiates being able to adapt to changing circumstances. Those who do not adapt do not survive. That means you must be willing to review and make changes.
We see in many ways how much we have in common with conservatives. We want to be left alone, and I at least want a less intrusive and more efficient government. But I do believe in goverment and that it has a social responsibiiity.
The biggest difference between conservatives and progressives is their stance on defense, as in the military.
Conservatives want the stick.
Progressives want the carrot.
Yet we see that there is strength in conservative conformity. Inspite of ideological differences among them, they realize the value of voting together as a bloc. Their main point of concensus is they don't think weak kneed democrats
are capable of defending the country.
Somehow we as liberals have to convince folks that it is not wise to beat your neighbor to a bloody pulp if he happens to step on your petunias. Yet I would not hesitate to destroy my neighbor if I caught him raping my daughter.
I'm only half stupid
Progressives
I thought Progressives want the carrot and the stick.
Clinton was ready to war w/ N Korea and N korea blink and accepted the carrot.
History
People of all political outlooks try to justify their positions by referring to an idealized past. For some it's the image of the pioneer and his family farm, for others its the era of a strong union movement which was a worker's paradise. Still others think that the Gilded Age captains of industry were those who made America great.
So, to the extent that everyone wants to bring back an imagined golden age we are all "conservatives".
A nice book on the differences between our national myths and reality is "Myths America Lives By". Here's a link to a description from the publisher.
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/f04/hughes.html
Too much time is spent using the past to justify the future. Some of our present problems are unique in the history of mankind. They require new solutions. We have never before faced a global crisis of population size, resource depletion and climate change. Trying to rework old models (especially idealized ones) isn't going to be adequate. As we are seeing these days, worldwide conflict is already happening due to these three pressures, and the responses have been mostly inadequate and ineffective.
I claim that both liberals and conservatives have failed to get their agendas put through over the past several decades. Here is a short essay of mine explaining what I mean:
Social Agendas
--- Policies not Politics
Disagree:
I can't think of any other time I'd rather be alive than now. If anything, I'm thinking ahead to an imagined golden age in another couple generations (equally misguided, but there are certain trends I'm hoping will continue).
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
The right sees us as all carrot.
I'm only half stupid
Testify! n/t
Well,
I think we can safely say that intelligent design is enjoying its last gasp (albeit a long, annoying gasp), and even Bill Bennett has said that the Right has already lost the gay marriage battle - it's only a matter of time now. But I won't be happy until we have flying cars, of course. If we don't eliminate ourselves as a species first.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Could it be
less conformity in the sense of groupthink and more an overlapping of self-interest? If we take the classical definitions of conservative/liberal (not that they apply 100% to our particular situation), conservatives are those happy with the status quo, while liberals want to see change. The circumstances under which liberals desire change may be very different and completely unrelated - some feel the system is too oppressive towards minority groups, others want looser restrictions on government intrustion, still others want a broader net of social services.
It's like the opening of Anna Karenina: "Happy families are all alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way."
All of which... may be exactly what you've said already. I'll think of something more profound later.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
Hmm
conservatives are those happy with the status quo, while liberals want to see change
In my experience, they aren't happy with the status quo, they are just very upset with uncertainty. "Why is that woman wearing black lipstick!?!?", "Why are those two dudes kissing?!?!" "AGH! WORLD NOT MAKING SENSE!"
Conservatives have a more complete/static worldview and tend to get offended/disoriented when things fall outside of that view. Ender's 'moderation' seems to be that he includes a large "wierd stuff" bin in his world view that keeps him from getting offended by it, but it is still its own 'wierd' space that shouldn't be treated the same as 'normal' stuff.
Liberals recognize that their world view is incomplete and always will be. As such 'wierd' is only a problem AFTER it is demonstrated to be harmful.
the idea that
Being conservative is mainly about preserving traditions or conforming to social mores is off base. That is a rather negative slant on upholding morality or supporting what is right and good.
Ok, so being conservative is for preserving certain "traditions". I guess you could call belief that we all have a right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness an antiquated folly, but to us conservatives it is very important. The tradition of caring individual liberty, personal responsibility, and private property has sustained and increased our country's strength and freedom for over two centuries.
Most conservatives do not fear change. We have changed from populist protectionists to free-trade internationalists when protectionism stopped making sense. And we also supported the passage of Civil Rights legislation when it became obvious that race based discrimination was a stain on our human rights record.
Most conservatives are like me. Yes we are conformist in a sense that we "conform" to the Ideal of America that the American Left seems to have forgotten. We love our country and remember the wisdom of our founders. We want a stronger America that is progressive. No one wants regression. We want for our country to be stronger, wealthier, more powerful, a leader in science and technology, and to continue providing opportunity unmatched by any other country in the World.
There is always a need for improvement, and regardless of the failures of our representatives, we conservatives strive for that.
We accept the concepts of women and minority equality in our society but we accept it on a more basic level. We welcome everyone of any race or gender to our community of strong individuals deciding their own future without reliance on the nanny state. Not every old idea needs to be changed. Personal responsibility and individual liberty are paramount and should always apply.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
one thing to add
I think many "liberals" act conservative. Because we come from a conservative past, and conservativism is holding onto that past, even those that progress to newer ideals are going to bring the past with them, their traditions.
I like tradition, so if that is conservative, I accept that, and I like many conservative principles, I prefer incremental cautious progress whenever possible (which is in fact the sort of conservativism you find in Burke, rather than, say, royalism).
However, I believe "progressivism" is exactly a new kind of philosophy which does not posit an idealized past. I think mankind has been improving, the past is full of things we had to overcome, not only slavery, but the ideals that said slavery was not just allowable, but what good and right, that assumed property right could apply over human rights, and a human could be property.
The present is far from perfect, but I do not, myself, have an image of a golden age. Isn't that what makes me progressive?
life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness
"life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness "
I just think that is a promise for the future, we have not achieved it yet.
The ideal itself is already invented, but not perfected, we are still interpreting what it means, and still working on its realization.
We have it only in comparison to the past, which is only evidence we are progressing in its direction.
Of course, it's debatable, many don't think we are even progressing toward it, but I do, though sometimes there are steps back.
Upside Down As Usual!
Nonsense! Everybody believes that they are upholding what is right and good. What distinguishes us is how we conceive of what is right and good, and conservatives do that via preserving traditions and conforming to social norms.
From the Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th Edition entry on Conservatism
:
Or from the MSN Encarata
:
So, "the desire to maintain, or conserve, the existing order" and "emphasiz[ing] the merits of the status quo and endors[ing] the prevailing distribution of power, wealth, and social standing" translate rather straightforwardly into being "about preserving traditions or conforming to social mores."
No, actually, I call the "right to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness" a cornerstone of liberalism, which is opposed by conservatives down to this very day. (See the discussion on gay marriage on this very site, for example.)
Again, the Columbia Encyclopedia, entry onliberalism
:
Ender:
And that tradition is commonly known as "liberalism."
Ender:
I really don't have time for all the lies here, so I'll just pluck the low-hanging fruit: Conservatives opposed passage of Civil Rights legislation with every fibre of their being. Barry Goldwater voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and as a result began the process of Republicans taking over the once-solid (racist, conservative) Democratic South in the presidential elections that year. OTOH, when LBJ signed the act he is reported to have said, "There goes the South for a generation."
His timing was a bit off, but that's exactly what happened.
I'm sorry Ender, but you have American history absolutely upside down. The depth of your ignorance is, quite frankly, impossible to fathom.
Good book
I thought "The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America" was a good look at American conservatism and how it's very different from, say, European conservatism. The Encarta definition you provide is a lot closer to European conservatism.
American Conservatism Is Different, Sure
But not that different. That's why I took the selection I used. The US is a settler, herrenvolk democracy, which gives it a different flavor, as does its British, rather than Continental roots. As a result, it shares significant traits in common with conservatism in South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
There is no ancient landed aristocracy, but rather a much more recent cheap imitation. Given the lack of such an aristocracy, the business class is far more central to conservatism in such societies, which also accounts for a more libertarian, "progressive" rhetoric. (The former Canadian "Progressive Conservative Party" was a great embodiment of this.) However, the rhetoric is not well-matched by reality, particularly the reality of the displaced native peoples--and in America, that of the descendents of imported slaves, since the native people did not work out well as slaves.
But these are relatively minor variations compared to what remains fundamental. The proof of that can be seen in the enthusiasm with which William Buckley and the other leading lights of conservatism embraced virtually every from of authoritarian leader from around the world--Franco, Pinochet, the whole succession of apartheid South African leaders, etc., etc., etc. Buckley & Co. clearly recognized their ideological soulmates, even though the local forms differed from place to place.
Liberals have embraced authoritarians, too
Lenin and Stalin hoodwinked more than a few who "wanted to believe". Various African Marxists. Our good friends Fidel Castro and Che Guevara. Etc. Sorry, but that goes both ways. All sides have a history of being willing to turn a blind eye to authoritarianism to see some of their other favored policies enacted.
And sold them out, to boot.
Not that the left can't be easily hoodwinked, but those examples were a bizarre merging of left politics and right authoritarianism. Progressives seem to get squashed on both sides - I'd be first against the wall in any of those regimes.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
hmm really?
Chavez and Castro have been persecuting their gay communities? I don't think authoritarianism has much to do with being an exclusively problem of the Right.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Not A Good Analogy At All
The true nature of what was happening in the Soviet Union was not clearly evident for quite some time--unlike the examples I cited. There was a constant barrage of wild charges from the Western capitalist press that had a profound "boy-who-cried-wolf" effect. Nonetheless, by the late 1930s, with the high-profile show trials, American liberals' view of the Soviet Union was generally quite negative. Membership in the Communist Party of America--whose subservience to Moscow was hidden at the time--plummeted, and never recovered.
"Various African Marxists" is perhaps the most telling phrase in your attempt to balance the scales. I names specific regimes that had long, bloody, and well-known records. You can't even come up with a name. (In fact, democracy has had a very rough go in Africa regardless of what ideology its rulers profess, or even actually practice, so you're inability to pick out a name is quite understandable.
As for Fidel Castro, he was only briefly non-controversial on the left. There are certainly some leftists--mostly in small sectarian organizations--who are apologists for him. But for the most part you won't find very many people who actively endorse him, which is what the right has repeatedly done, and still does to this day. Che Guevera, OTOH, was only a government official for the briefest period of time. So, again, the fact that you mention him, when he's not really germane to this discussion, shows how terribly thin your list of examples is.
To underscore the lack of symmetry here, let's turn things around. How often does the right call for overthrowing democratically elected government they don't like, compared to the left? Recent examples (since 2000) on the right: Haiti, Columbia, Palestinian Authority. Recent examples on the left: ???
Pew & Robert Altemeyer Have Interesting Insights About This
There are a couple of ways to come at this. One--via the dreaded (and horribly, though undefinedly biased) Pew Center--is to recognize a 4-fold typology: liberal/populist/conservative/liberatarian. "In Search of Ideologues in America:
It's Harder than You May Think" by Scott Keeter, Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, and Gregory A. Smith, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life (April 11, 2006) breaks it down like this:
So, what we see in developing countries with leftist leaders is--no surprise--much more along populist lines than along liberal ones. I say "no surprise" because liberalism has long been correlated with cosmopolitanism, education and the like, all of which are in relatively short supply in developing nations.
Altemeyer's insight is more comlicated to explain. But, basically, he went out and tried to find leftwing authoritarians and couldn't find any. He did, however, find that some of those who came closest to fitting the bill also scored very high on the rightwing authoritarian scale. He dubbed these "wildcard authoritarians," and speculated that their existence could help explain (a) folks who start out on the left, but find a permanent home on the right (Mussolini, the neocons, etc.) and (b) folks on the left who become authoritarian leaders when their revolutions succeed (Stalin, Castro, etc.)
Both these analyses suggest that liberals really are consistently anti-authoritarian, and yet also helps to explain why there is also a small, but significant authoritarian strain on the left.
p.s. The ability to handle this sort of ambiguity and complexity is a function of a different cognitive dimension that has profound impacts on politics as well--the dimension of cognitive development, initially investigated by Jean Piaget, starting in the 1920s. In general, liberals tend to exhibit higher levels of cognitive development, though only a smattering of research has been done that's directly on point.
Yes they have.
Here's a good article
on homosexuality in Cuba. Venezuela's about where we are today.
Saint, n. A dead sinner revised and edited. - Ambrose Bierce
also
liberal attitudes about various social issues are not necessarily the required attributes of various strains of the Left. So I am sure some of the more socialist/hard leftists couldn't care less about homosexual rights or the more anti-violence anti-war liberalism.
"To discuss evil in a manner implying neutrality, is to sanction it." AR
Conservatives have no moral principles
Conservatism is tribalism and conforming to established authority within the tribe --- which usually means supporting the injustices of elites.
Conservatives conserve nothing, not even traditions but they are very sheep-like in their behaviour so they tend to stick with tradition because it's less likely to get them in trouble for being different. However if a president comes along who is their leader and suddenly says something like "torture is ok" when there's been a tradition of saying torture is bad then conservatives will jettison that tradition in two seconds flat.
As a result I agree conservatives don't fear change; they fear being out of step.
Conservatives have a strong group identity which feeds their bloodthirsty, racist, criminal side. They have no sense of morality as others understand it but they understand that they have to pretend to have morals to fit in. Instead their sense of what is moral is nothing more than whatever is seen to benefit their in-group. eg. If murder benefits the in-group then murder is good. This leads to ridiculously contradictory moral opinions because very often the very same act is considered good or bad according to who commits the act, the in-group or the out-group.
This means a conservative usually cannot answer a generic question of morals such as, "Is it right for one country to invade another?" They must first know if the invading country is an official "good guy".
In fact conservatives would see someone with real moral values as a "traitor" or "weak" if it happens that their own security dominated opinions are opposed to moral behaviour.
Examples
Nyerere? Lumumba? Mugabe before it became increasingly obvious how nuts he is? The civil war in Angola?
In other parts of the world, there were definitely a good number of leftist sympathizers for communists in North Vietnam and Nicaragua; and for the PA under Arafat, which was a dictatorship in all but name.
Pinochet is a legitimate example of right-wing support for authoritarianism, but Allende was hardly a sterling individual himself. (Remember, to a right-winger like me, seizing private property and nationalizing companies *is* a form of authoritarianism!)
There were still Stalin supporters in the US later than just the 30s. Henry Wallace?
Fortunately this one is restricted to just a few wackjobs like Ramsey Clark, but there are a few Saddam sympathizers out there even today.
Regardless of his involvement or lack thereof in any particular government, there are quite a few Che idolizers on the left. They don't call themselves communists any more for the most part, but I had my run-ins with quite a few far-left folks in college (the Noam Chomsky types).
Yes, if you want to put it to me straight, I *am* skeptical of democracy -- and this is indeed a standard "conservative" position, despite all the talk about democracy in Iraq. I think it's important to remember that we live in a "republic" and not a "democracy". I consider voting one of the *least* important aspects of a free society, compared to, say, freedom of speech or private property rights or an independent judiciary. In elections, sometimes the bad guys win. In true democracy, 51% of the people can vote to oppress the other 49%. Or, as is more common, 90% of the people can vote to tax and redistribute the wealth of the other 10%.
funny
as I work my way slowly through "The Conservative Mind" (honestly, it's set down at the moment) I was struck by the fact that Burke was non-democratic, but neither royalist.
A transitional philosophy that wants progress from but not progress to, perhaps?
racism
I think it's not clear at all. While I'm with many progressives in pointing fingers at conservatives groups, arguing they harbor, for example, more than their fair share of racists and other bigots... that is still a depraved non-philosophical conservatism.
Even if it were a part of conservative philosophy to be bigoted (say to outside non-conformant groups, since I do think conformity is conservative and has a necessarily ugly side), there are still other principles in that philosophy which ARE values, including moral values.
And also, within the group of self-identified "conservatives" there are certainly moral people, even if some of their positions are amoral, perhaps even by their own standards.
I actually can accept as a progressive that conservatism is a somewhat inconsistent philosophy, that it needs sorting out, e.g. modern conservatism contains some contradictions that cannot stand... a sense of conformism to perceived tradition, but also this claim to "rugged individualism"... still, your claim is too extreme, because even so it's a matter of sorting the conservative philosophy out, choosing which moral stands are real, which have to go, rather than it being true they have NO moral principles, they have conflicting ones and should choose.
Extreme theories
Extreme theories are usually the correct ones. at any rate a simple theory (ie an extreme one in this context) is to be prefered. What is it to be conservative? What does it mean? Whereas individuals are complex things the essence of the -ism may well be something simple and that is just the sort of thing people are looking for whe they look for an explanation --- a simple statistic that fully represents an apparently more complex system.
That is what "explaining" something means.
A simplifying insight.
As you probably know Paul has an entire website for his views that conservatism is about XYZ. What I put forward is actually pretty similar to what he has said, but I think I say it more concisely and with wider application. For example as you know I would say that liberals often operate in a "conservative" way on some topics. Specifically meaning that they reject the moral system of treating all perspectives as the same and adopt a "moral" system of saying everything my group does is moral and everything my enemies do is immoral -- on the feminism thing for example. Or on the question of the US soldiers in Iraq.
Conservatives just act in a conservative way a lot more often - perhaps always.
Two methods of making a judgment then. One is the method we all pay lip service to -- facts, moral axioms, laws, blind justice. This is the unspoken common ground of a debate because it's considered neutral with respect to disagreeing views. And then the other way of moral reasoning is "My tribe is right and my enemies are wrong". Debates get derailed because half of the people debating are really thinking tribally and then using their "knowldege" they try to figure out a nice sounding argument as if they had come to their view using reason. Of course the result is a mess. Insincere arguments. Sloganeering. Arguments that make no sense. The simultaneous adoption of conflicting arguments or facts. And why should an argument formed under a tribalist "logic" make sense when viewd through the lense of the rational? Most of the time it doesn't and it's frustrating to the other guy to have to pick over dross, which is often defended as if it was gold.
It would be a lot easier if most folks just admited they didn't reach their views because of logic to begin with.
David's Mirroring the Conservatives
David's characterization of conservatives is somewhat jarring, but it's pretty much a mirror image of how conservatives routinely describe liberals--not so much in the specifics of its content, but in its overall negativity, and lack of coherent structure.
Unlike conservative critiques of liberalism, however, there are some significant chunks of truth in there, but they have to be carefully qualified. There are clear differences between conservative ideology as expressed by various different conservative leaders and how it is understood by ordinary conservatives, for example, and there even more differences between ideology and practice.
To take just one example, tribalism in some sense is a part of conservatism, and there's decades of historical data to support this. Conservatives are much more likely to think in terms of "us" and "them," for example.
But "tribalism" is a very broad term, and one can even argue that the radical neo-con turn of conservatism in recent years is part of a constriction in the sense of tribalism involved--from a more inclusive society-wide view to a more clannish on here at home, which is mirrored on the international level by a retreat from multi-lateralism. There are even cognitive models that correlate with this shift.
The task is relatively simplified if we first distringuish between conservative narrative--the expressed ideology and how it is used to interpret unfolding events in political discourse--and the attitudes of self-described conservatives generally. At the attitudinal level, there is surprisingly little difference between liberals and conservatives--somewhere between 10% and 25% on most questions asked over the decades on the General Social Survey, for example. But conservative narratives are considerably more polarizing and extreme--not to mention reality-challenged.
The real hidden divide in American politics is between mainstream, mainstreet conservative opinion and polarizing conservative narratives that come from the organized conservative movement, which might more accurately be called "reactionary," rather than "conservative." Attacks like David's actually help the movement conservatives maintain their grip. David reinforces the notion that conservatives and reactionaries are one and the same, and that notion is the key to rightwing power in America today.
The Jalepeno Smoothie Meta-Theory Of Political Theories
David's approach is to take all the complexities and subtleties, blend them together so that most of their distinctive flavors are lost, and amp up the volume on the most intense, sensational ones. Hence the Jalepeno Smoothie metaphor for his meta-theory of political theories.
So, ask yourself, which is really more to your liking? A diverse meal of soup, salad, entree, drinks and desert? Or a jalepeno smoothie?
The choice is yours.
I agree with that
the lip service and the fact that there really is an alternate view which is still quite alive though largely in the closet and not admitted to, "my tribe is right and my enemy's is wrong"
but on extreme theories
that part I don't agree or disagree with, I'm not sure what it means.